> Richard, Geoffrey, Liz and all,
> I've come in a little late to this fascinating discussion about the
> high
> priest in atonement. But may I offer a few observations:
>
> 1. In response to Geoffrey's question, 'how come no one has
> suggested this
> high priestly context for atonement before?' I would suggest this is
> because
> the high priest has been ignored, period. (see my article at
> http://www.marquette.edu/maqom/jesus.pdf)
>

Sorry about that. In that case, you¹ll have to go tohttp://www.marquette.edu/maqom/
And then scroll down the page until you get to Jesus and the High Priest
(Crispin H.T. Fletcher-Louis)¹ under Theme 14.

I hope that works.
Crispin.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Jeffrey B. Gibson

... Thanks for this. I look forward to reading your paper. May I note, though, that one of my reasons for not seeing the death of the high priest, whether

Message 3 of 21
, Nov 12, 2003

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Crispin Fletcher-Louis wrote:

> Richard, Geoffrey, Liz and all,
> I've come in a little late to this fascinating discussion about the
> high
> priest in atonement. But may I offer a few observations:
>
> 1. In response to Geoffrey's question, 'how come no one has
> suggested this
> high priestly context for atonement before?' I would suggest this is
> because
> the high priest has been ignored, period. (see my article at
> http://www.marquette.edu/maqom/jesus.pdf)
>
> 2. Richard's ideas need now to be supplemented by a consideration of
> Margaret Barker's thesis that the goat 'lyhwh' on the Day of Atonement
> is a
> substitute for the high priest (who plays the role of YHWH) in the
> cultic
> drama. It is the blood of this goat that makes the atonement (in the
> pre-eminent act of atonement) as a substitute for the life (i.e.
> Death) of
> the high priest/yhwh. (See e.g. M. Barker, The Revelation of Jesus
> Christ
> (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 2000), 45 ...; M. Barker, The Great High
> Priest.
> The Temple Roots of Christian Liturgy (London: T. & T. Clark, 2003),
> chapter
> 3). In both books Barker has fascinating interpretative observations
> on a
> number of late second temple texts to support her thesis.

Thanks for this. I look forward to reading your paper. May I note,
though, that one of my reasons for not seeing the "death" of the high
priest, whether on the Day of Atonement or not, as the origin of the
belief in the atoning significance of Jesus is that the language used to
describe the significance of Jesus death -- especially in Paul and in
his "died for us/our sins" formula (the background of which is largely
Greek) ---- has little in common with the imagery or the language
surrounding the Temple cult and never seems to allude to the DoA..